the testimony of many to the right impressions, which they have received from a perusal of my Bampton Lectures and other publications. My present assailants certainly have made a great parade of objections. With a minute diligence, they have turned over the leaves, and drawn their line on many a passage and many a word. But with all these painful efforts, they have made out no case against my argument. I see no reason, from what they have alleged, for changing a single opinion, or retracting a single statement. Nor indeed, in that posture of mind in which they applied themselves to the work of criticism, were they likely to discover any real objections. My writings, it is clear, have been searched by them for evidence of principles to which they were themselves previously opposed, and in justification of a course of conduct to which they were already committed. And it seems a superfluous labour to address refutation to constructions and arguings, which derive their being and form from particular minds, and are not based on free and large grounds of inquiry.

Still, as public attention has been so earnestly importuned to my writings, I have thought it advisable to avail myself of the call for another Edition of my Bampton Lectures, to give a general Introduction to the views contained in them. The work itself, being originally intended for a learned audience, may not unreasonably appear difficult to some persons, even if there were no prejudices excited in their minds against it. It seems expedient therefore,especially as the work will now undoubtedly find its way to a much larger circle,-to prepare the general reader for

entering on the argument, by some preliminary observations.

More particularly, now that much party-colouring has been scattered over it, I feel it but due to my station, and to the cause of Truth,-which I firmly hold to be on the side of that work,—to endeavour to smooth the access to it, and show, that candid readers have no real ground for regarding it with suspicion. I have no expectation, in doing so, that any thing I may say, will reconcile the determined controversialist. Such an expectation would not be warranted by experience. I shall be happy, if, on the whole, but one ray of light shall fall on the cloud of his misconceptions.

I. I would first point out what is the object proposed in the Bampton Lectures. There has been much misrepresentation on this head. The work has been held up as an attempt to explain away Christian Truths—to leave nothing of Christian Doctrine-to reduce the Creed of the Christian to a few historical events, or else to certain abstract general points in which the various opinions of discordant sects may be found to agree and generally to unsettle the minds of believers as to what is Christian Truth, and what is not. Unfair objection to my line of argument has thus been raised; and persons have been prevented from giving that calm, unprejudiced attention to the subject, which it strictly requires. It is not only true that men condemn what they do not understand; but they are disabled from understanding what they have been taught to condemn.

Let me premise then that the Inquiry pursued in the Bampton Lectures, leaves the Matter of Christian Doctrine untouched. It is one thing to inquire into the Mode of Statement, supposing the Substance of the Statement to be true; and another thing to inquire into the Matter or Substance of the Truth stated. A Truth, whether we call it a Fact or a Doctrine, is quite independent of any particular mode of Statement. To take an extreme case: a Fact would be no less a Truth, or rather no less a Reality, though there existed no language in which it could be expressed, or though no one had yet attempted to describe it in language. For example, there are many Truths of Physical Science yet undiscovered, and which no one consequently has ever laid down in words; but which must be regarded as possessing a real existence, no less than those which have been discovered and recorded in scientific phraseology. The theories of modern Astronomy and modern Chemistry were as true in ancient times as they are now, though, as not known, they were never stated. Observation, indeed, of the idioms of different languages will shew this sufficiently. When the Romans called an army Exercitus, they gave it a peculiar name founded on the excellence of their discipline, and significant of the importance which they attributed to discipline. But had the Greeks a less real notion of an army, or have we ourselves, because the terms denoting an army both in Greck and English include no similar association? The logician again learns from his science, that there may be several propositions exactly equivalent in meaning, though none of the words are the same. The historian may relate the same fact in entirely different expressions,-expressions drawn from entirely different trains of thought. Suppose it possible for Thucydides and Clarendon to have drawn

the same character; the life, under what

though both may have drawn it to variety of ideas would the characteristics of the two descriptions have been presented! So too different poets may describe the same substantial realities, whilst the metaphors employed by them are derived from their own peculiarities of observation and thought.

Now if this holds in other subjects, what is to prevent its holding also in Theology? What is there here to identify modes of statement with the Truths themselves; so that to shew the one to be variable, is to shake the foundation of the other? Is it true, or is it not, that there is a Technical system of phraseology, by which Religious Truth is expressed? It cannot be denied that there is. For what else are the terms, Substance, Person, Justification, Election, Regeneration, Conversion, Corruption, &c. but Terms restricted to a peculiar sense in the subject of Theology, and thus constituting part of what is called a Technical System? These Terms indeed are so identified in popular usage with the Religious Truths themselves, that advantage may be easily taken of popular conceptions of the subject, to represent the Statements of those Truths as identical with the Truths. And an ignorant or unfair antagonist, the former not perceiving the difference, the latter designedly confounding it, may thus very readily induce persons to believe, that an inquiry into the origin and nature of Doctrinal Statements, is a disputing of Christian Doctrines in themselves. Τὸ διορίζειν γὰρ οὐκ Tò ἐστι τῶν πολλῶν. But let those who have hitherto been misguided, or who have not yet thought sufficiently of the nature of the difference between Truths themselves and their modes of Statement, now consider temperately, apart from prejudiced views, and passionate appeals to their fears, and controversial acrimony, whether there is not in reality this

difference. And let them know at any rate, that I have had this difference in view throughout, in the theological discussions to which I am referring; these discussions having to do, not with any explanations of the Christian verities or Doctrines, as such, as they exist,—as they are revealed,—but with the Language and Forms of Expression in which they are conveyed in Theological Systems.

Nor even in regard to the Statements of Christian Truths, have I had any design of explaining them away, or condemning them as wrong or untrue. As for explaining away language that we have solemnly adopted and still retain, I consider such a proceeding as dishonest. And so far from condemning them, I conceive the adoption of them by the Church as fully defensible. I believe that the leaders of the Church did well, and could do no otherwise, at the time when they sanctioned the introduction of our present Theological Language; acting, to the best of their judgment, for the Church, in its capacity of" Keeper of Holy Writ," and "Judge of Controversy." I would even go so far as to say that, whilst Theological Terms are essentially mutable, and therefore ought to be altered, should circumstances require it, yet what the ancient rhetorician observes of them is true, as a general rule; illa mutari vetat Religio et consecratis utendum est. It is as with our authorized Translation of the Bible. Where there are inveterate pious associations with a peculiar phraseology, a strong case must be shewn for breaking off those venerable links, and offending not unreasonable prejudices. But I would have these Terms, or Statements, rightly appreciated and understood. I would have them freely